On any given night when I get the urge for a sweet hit, I’ll do one of two things. Strike up the coffee is my first line of attack. My brain must process coffee’s flavor in close proximity to chocolate or something sweet. I’ll add whey protein to it normally, so it not only tastes great, it fills me and pushes away the cravings. If it’s too late for coffee, I’ll also turn to my 85% Dark Cacao chocolate. Two squares do me about right and I’m able to carry on.
All of that will change with this recipe, I fear.
I did some searching and came across a new site for me, Club Fritch, a fun site put together by a married couple living in Canada. I don’t know about you, but I thought our friends up north did a GREAT job with the Olympics as well as show us ignorant folk what a BEAUTIFUL country they have. But I digress…
The only disclaimer I would add add on this recipe is this: studies have shown that sweeteners like Stevia cause an insulin response, much like sugar consumption. The sweet flavors hit the tongue and in some folks, it is the same as processed carbs or sugar. So, what I’m saying is that like most other Primal desserts – enjoy in moderation within the confines of the 80/20 rule. But the bottom line is this: ENJOY! (Or, if you’re like me, I’m already experiencing that insulin response just by reading this recipe and checking out the picture!)
Thanks again to Gillian and Ryan at Club Fritch for sharing this!
Nutty Primal Nanaimo Bars (Buttercream Version)
Crust
1 cup brazil nuts
½ cup coconut oil
dash salt
1 tbsp stevia extract
¼ tsp vanilla
2 tbsp cocoa powder
Blitz brazil nuts until a course powder. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend well. Spoon onto a greased (with butter or coconut oil) cookie pan (9×9). Bake for 25 minutes at 350’F. Cool and chill.
Buttercream Layer
This is not really a custard; but the original Nanaimo bar custard layer isn’t really a custard either. So go ahead and enjoy!
1 1/8 cup butter, soft
¼ tsp vanilla
1 1/3 tbsp stevia extract (or another sweetener to taste)
¼ cup coconut flour
Whip the butter in a food processor. Add the remaining ingredients and blend well. Spoon onto chilled crust layer and return to fridge to chill more.
Hard Chocolate Topping
½ cup coconut oil
3/8 cup cocoa powder
½ tsp vanilla
½ tbsp stevia extract
Melt all ingredients together in a saucepan over low heat. Cool slightly. Spoon over well-chilled custard layer. Chill further!
When the final layer is hard (about 20 minutes); cut into squares and enjoy! Store in the refrigerator.
The cheesecake alternative is still “Primal” or shall we say 80/20 Primal with the use of cream cheese.
Cheesecake Layer (instead of custard)
3/4 cup butter, soft
1/8 cup almond butter (or another nut butter of your choice)
1/8 cup cream cheese
¼ tsp vanilla
1 1/3 tbsp stevia extract (or another sweetener to taste)
Whip the butter in a food processor. Add the remaining ingredients and blend well. Spoon onto chilled crust layer and return to fridge to chill more.
Oh, Canada! You’ve given me another reason to love you. Already cold enough in South Dakota, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere any cooler, but if I did…
For instance, Slavic people don’t like to smile in photos:
Belarus Winter Olympians - Maybe 4 but 3 of those aren’t so much a smile as it is a stretching of the mouth and at least 3 of the guys look like they killed the photographer right afterwards
UkrainianWinter Olympians - 5 and that’s being generous (Lada looks like she twitched before her picture)
Kazakhstan Winter Olympians - Wow, that’s a grand total of 0
Georgian Winter Olympians - I’ll give it 1 cause Nina really gave it the old Georgian try.
But I feel like the only reason Stefan is any good at Alpine Skiing is because he was one of the guys chasing James Bond down the mountain with a rifle at the beginning of The Spy Who Loved Me
Interlude:
James Bond movies always baffled me. This scene in particular:
Why is the worlds greatest agent wearing a yellow ski suit with orange boots? Isnt that counter productive for an undercover spy?
Why do the Russian agents speak with an English accent, did they go to Oxford?
Whats up with the one moron with a pistol? When he was preparing for this ill-conceived ambush and he had his choice of the KGB arsenal did he think that a snub-nosed pistol would be the most effective? I mean really, youre skiing 3 meters behind him. Shotgun would be much more productive
The rifles sure do make a lot of noise for having a silencer on them
Ok and now for the Slavics cheery counterparts. Im gunna skip showing the Americans because its obvious we are always happy. I mean we invented drive-through/fast food restaurant, the nuclear bomb and modernized porn. Whats there not to be happy about? So let’s go with some less obviously happy nations, like…..
Norwiegen Winter Olympians - Ive been there, theres no reason for them to be happy unless you like your food over-salted and pickled fish.
Italian Winter Olympians - Ive always said that Italy would be great if there werent any Italians but this group looks a lot more cheery than the “WOPs” I dealt with.
Canadian Winter Olympians - Canadas happiness can be gauged by their success in hockey. While two Olympic gold medals in the past decade is all fine and good, Lord Stanley’s cup has been absent for the past 2 decades (0k 17 years to be exact), along with an NHL team in Quebec City, Winnipeg and Hamilton. Theres really no reason for them to be happy.
Parliament has been on a “break” for the last two months here in Canada. Yesterday was the first day back, and included the throne speech. One of the “nuggets” in the speech was about the national anthem, specifically, changing the lyrics.
It’s bad enough that most people don’t know the lyrics now. It’s tricky because we don’t normally sing it completely in one language but switch to French for the middle stanza. In 1980, Parliament changed the lyrics to add “far and wide” and “God keep our land”. Right, good. Some folks haven’t caught up with that change and still sing it old school.
The proposed change? “In all thy sons command” to “thou dost in us command” (from the 1908 poem from Judge Robert Stanley Weir). That’s a freakin’ tongue twister. The other proposal is “In all our hearts command”.
Who complained? I’m a woman and I’m not offended by that line. It’s an old poem/song. It’s the way it was back then. It’s part of our heritage. The song doesn’t say “Don’t let women vote! Keep them barefoot, pregnant and uneducated”. Maybe I’m just not enough of a feminist.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Beyond that aspect, what the hell? Loads of stuff died on the paper when they prorogued Parliament. We have bigger issues than the lyrics in a song, don’t we? Have we solved all our other problems and now we’re just looking for a make-work project?
Fix this “economic downturn”. Fix child poverty. Affordable housing. Health Care. Education. The Environment. Get Stephen an actual personality. Something important.
Way to come back from a 2 month break to tackle the tough issues, Stevie.
I am a big fan of CBC Dragons’ Den but passive viewing is not my thing. And when the story is interesting, I like to dig deeper and, over the years, I’ve interviewed Dragons, Dragons’ Den entrepreneurs and conducted followup interviews with the pitching entrepreneurs.
Tonight, after spending sometime (half an hour) of time to research, I was unable to find much external & independent information about UseMyBank (a Season 5, episode 6 pitch) to understand and appreciate their claims of profits on TV and their business.
Anyway, I “naturally” (it is naturally to me) turned to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office to do a trademark database search. (note: the patent search link is on the same CIPO page)
To my surprise, I found that UseMyBank’s Trademark application (from an online search) is currently “opposed” by none other than Bank of Montreal. So I naturally wonder if BMO is doing any business with UseMyBank while BMO is trying to take down its trademark? How about other members of the big 5 banks?
Again, since the business name has been “Used in CANADA since December 12, 2002″ (according to the trademark application), and the business has been a success according to the pitch on TV, I am a little surprised for the lack of external & independently verifiable information of it as a business. Any big city Canadian newspapers or magazines available online will help me a lot but I found none.
May be someone can help me here. I am, to say the least, confused about UseMyBank as a business. Can anyone send me links to some external & independent sources of information re UseMyBank?
There is an interesting article yesterday in the Toronto Star that does a good job of describing what will happen when the G20 arrives in town in June this year.
Of course, it will be accompanied by all the security and surveillance that these days comes as part and parcel of these ‘mega-events’, whether they be sporting, economic or political – with the added hyper-security around world leaders. Rather like the peripatetic monarch’s court that used to be a feature of high mediaeval European societies, the travelling circus of global governance brings with it, its own security norms, creating locked-down ‘islands’ within cities, temporarily removing the rights and liberties of residents, and moving out and on those people seen to be ‘out-of place’ (the homeless, street vendors, protestors and so on). In many cases, ordinary people are suddenly potential troublemakers, and residents are harassed in advance by intelligence services who check profiles, backgrounds, political affiliations and so on. Business within the zone are usually negatively affected – even if the case is made, as it normally is, that there will be some nebulous ‘economic benefit’, which (oh, so conveniently) happens to cover the costs of security. The events are often also ‘test-beds’ for new technologies of surveillance and security – last year at the Pittsburgh G20 summit, we saw the use of sonic weapons on protestors for example.
Why do cities put up with this? Well, it’s all about inter-urban competition. For urban authorities these mega-events reinforce the global status of the city, or allow it to climb the ever-incrasing numbers of rankings of ‘world cities’ of ‘global cities’. Toronto, like so many other cities in the second or third rank of global cities, is obsessed with appearing to be world class, and the local government will put up with almost any kind of inconvenience to its citizens that is seen to benefit the city’s global status.
I’ll be keeping an eye on developments, but if I was a Toronto resident, and if I could, I’d just leave town for a couple of weeks before and during the event…
In these Olympics, Canadians only paid attention to Canada
Posted Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010
By GIL LeBRETON
glebreton@star-telegram.com
lebreton VANCOUVER, British Columbia — After a spirited torch relay ignited pride in every corner of the country, the Olympic Games began and quickly galvanized the nation.
Flags were everywhere. The country’s national symbol hung from windows and was worn on nearly everyone’s clothing.
Fervent crowds cheered every victory by the host nation.
But enough about the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
At the opening of these Olympic Winter Games more than two weeks ago, Vancouver organizers expressed the hope that they could show the world a truly “Canadian Games.”
That they succeeded in that, there is little doubt.
For 17 days we were barraged with Canadian flags, rode buses and trains with people in sweatshirts and jerseys adorned with Canadian maple leafs, and were serenaded at venues by Canadian spectators, lustily cheering for Canadian athletes.
The first Olympics I ever attended were also in Canada, the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal. For a kid not long out of college, it was a profound experience, seeing Lasse Viren, Alberto Juantorena, Nadia Comaneci– the athletes of the world — on the sporting world’s grandest stage.
One of the speakers at that Olympics used a phrase that lingers with me still: the family of man.
There is no earthly event that reinforces that notion as well as an Olympic Games. For all of the latter-day Games’ inherent commercialism, that ideal persists. I truly believe that.
It persists, despite the overwhelming chauvinism of the past two weeks.
They showed us Canadian Games, all right. And in most cases, nothing but Canadian Games.
I’m not talking about TV coverage. I have no idea what Bob Costas and NBC were televising back in the States.
But from the opening ceremony to Sunday’s closing, from the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili to Sunday’s gold-medal hockey game, on the streets of Vancouver and at the Olympic venues, only a token nod was given to the rest of the world’s athletes.
I was as surprised as I was disappointed.
Had the classic Canadian inferiority complex finally decided to bite back? Or was this a dark consequence of the Own the Podium program?
At the Games’ outset, Canada’s obsession with finally winning its first gold medal as a host nation was understandable — quaint, almost.
But that story swiftly swept the luge tragedy off the front pages. There were no follow-up stories about investigations, memorials or retributions to the family.
Kumaritashvili himself was blamed for the fatal accident. The luge competition went on. Some Canadian lugers even callously complained about the shortening of the track.
And so the tone for these Games was set.
It was Canada’s party, and no dead luger, no critical British tabloid and no visiting Americans were going to spoil it.
That attitude is regrettable, because a good, if not especially memorable, Olympics followed.
U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn won her cherished gold medal in the women’s downhill, validating all the product endorsements and cover shoots she will have between now and 2014.
Evan Lysacek struck a blow for U.S. men’s figure skating, giving legendary coach Frank Carroll an Olympic champion for the first time.
Texas-based Olympians fared well, winning five medals, which is as many as Finland, Japan and Italy.
Speedskater Chad Hedrick of Spring earned silver and bronze medals, Denton’s Jordan Malone won a relay bronze in short track, and the Dallas Stars’ Brenden Morrow (gold) and Jere Lehtinen (bronze) are going home with hockey medals.
But a lot happened that didn’t make the front pages of the Vancouver newspapers or find its way into the Canadian TV network’s opening montage.
Norway’s Marit Bjoergen won three gold medals, a silver and a bronze in cross-country skiing to become the ninth athlete to win five medals at a single Winter Olympics.
Skier Maria Riesch finished in the top 10 in all five Alpine events. Her native country, Germany, won at least one medal on every day of this Winter Olympics.
American short track speedskater Apolo Ohno won three medals, giving him eight and making him the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian of all time. But that’s nothing — Norway’s Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, at age 36, won two biathlon medals and now has 11.
Canada’s rush to the victory stand over the Games’ final week resulted in a Winter Olympics record for a single nation, 14 total. The U.S. hockey team can take solace that its silver-medal finish Sunday was the Americans’ 37th medal, also a record for one nation.
But for the most part, the most underappreciated soul at these Olympics was an American or a European on the medals stand.
Yes, every host nation cheers lustily for its native Olympians. But never in my experience to the extent that we saw here, where the rest of the world’s athletes were little more than drink coasters at the party.
South Korean Kim Yu-Na’s dazzling gold-medal performance in women’s figure skating, for example, was overwhelmed here by the attention given to Quebec’s Joannie Rochette, whose mother tragically died.
Chief organizer of the Games, John Furlong, mentioned Kumaritashvili briefly in his Closing Ceremony remarks. But the hosts’ insensitivity had long ago been duly noted.
At a news conference Saturday, for example, someone asked Ken Melamed, mayor of Whistler, where the luge run was located, if the village planned some sort of memorial to the luger from Georgia.
Why, yes, the mayor said, “We have to find a way to acknowledge Nodar… and the Canadian athletes that have done well.”
See? They don’t get it.
The Vancouver Games’ ticketing policy didn’t help the partisan scene at the venues. To order Olympic tickets through the Vancouver 2010 Web site, a buyer had to have a Canadian address.
China sold 6.8 million tickets to its 2008 Summer Olympics. Vancouver only made 1.6 million available. The Canadians wanted to “Own the Podium,” but organizers made sure that they owned the grandstands at each venue as well.
I’m still mystified that Canada fans were able to grab what seemed to be 98 percent of the tickets at the hockey venue. Olympic crowds have always been more inclusive.
In his closing news conference Sunday, IOC president Jacques Rogge acknowledged that there were “teething pains” as the Vancouver Games began.
“There was an extraordinary embrace by the city of Vancouver,” he said. “Something I’ve never seen before.”
There was embracing, all right, but then Canadians have always had the reputation for drinking a lot of beer. The loose marijuana laws only added to the nightly revelry in the downtown streets — which, frankly, seemed to have little to do with the Olympics.
Canada wanted to hold a party, and the Canadians did. The gold medals only seemed to fuel them.
Team Canada hockey jerseys became the uniform of the streets. Maple leafs were either hanging or on clothing everywhere.
One thing I never saw: a simple flag or shirt with the five Olympic rings. Not anywhere. After 15 Olympics, that was a first.
I didn’t attend the ‘36 Olympics, but I’ve seen the pictures. Swastikas everywhere.
No political reference is meant, just an Olympic one. What on earth were the Canadians thinking?
An Olympic host is supposed to welcome the world. This one was too busy being (their word) “patriotic.”
“Now you know us, eh?” chief organizer Furlong said.
We thought we did two weeks ago. Now, I’m wondering if Canadians can even recognize themselves.
My favorite part of the Olympics, besides watching Apollo Anton Ohno speed skate, was the couples ice dancing.
Of course, I rooted for the USA team: Meryl Davis and Charlie White, however Canada’s team Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skated were my favorite! Their performance for the gold medal was so fluid, and they were so in-sync with one another, it was hard not to fall in love with them and their routine. It was like watching a young couple in love stealing a few moments together on the ice.
I’d watch that one performance over and over again – it was absolutely beautiful.
Also, I’m absolutely certain Tessa and Scott are dating. At a press conference, they were asked if they were a couple. Tessa hesitated, stuttered, blushed and laughing stating, “Um, I forgot the first question now.” Scott then chimed in saying, “Tessa and I are actually not dating, just on the ice for 7 minutes, every time we do the program and that’s about it.“
Right. I still don’t believe you Scott – but whatever you say . . .
Of course, I rooted for the USA team: Meryl Davis and Charlie White, however Canada’s team Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skated were my favorite! Their performance for the gold medal was so fluid, and they were so in-sync with one another, it was hard not to fall in love with them and their routine. It was like watching a young couple in love stealing a few moments together on the ice.
